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A twist and a turn and "He-yew!" the skipper yelled. "Oy-hoo!" grunted the two gangs of us at the halyards, and into the air and over the rail swung the dip-net, swimming full. "Down!" We let it sag quickly to Clancy and Parsons, who were at the rail. "Hi-o!" they called cheerfully, and turned the dip-net inside out. Out and down it went again, "He-yew!" and up and in it came again. "Oy-hoo!"
It was his pleasure and seemingly the pleasure and privilege of all lineman's gangs the world over to whistle blithely and to call impudently to any passing petticoat that caught his fancy. Perched three feet from the top of the high pole he would cling protected, seemingly, by some force working in direct defiance of the law of gravity.
Having been the cause of our detention in the hungry wilderness of Ugombo, I was not in a frame of mind to forgive him; so, to prevent any future truant tricks on his part, I was under the necessity of including him with the chained gangs of runaways.
This occurred shortly before sunset, and all through the hot and breathless night the unhappy negroes were kept toiling at the sweeps in gangs or relays, the result being that when morning dawned the poor wretches seemed, one and all, to be utterly worn-out.
The tents had come from lumber-camps, from river-driving gangs, and from private stores; there was some regular uniform, flags were flying everywhere, many fires were burning, the voice of Lagroin in command came up the valley loudly, and Valmond watched the drill and a march past. The fires lit up the sides of the valley and glorified the mountains beyond.
The only visible signs of wealth consisted of a big, shimmering diamond stone of ice and fire that glittered and burned on one of his fingers, and the dainty, beautiful thoroughbred mare he rode between camps and across the country on business. No man of McLean's gangs could honestly say that he ever had been overdriven or underpaid.
That day I clawed and scrambled a score of times up the face of rock walls. I zigzagged through long rows of negroes pounding holes in rock ledges. I stumbled and splashed my way through gangs of Martinique "muckers." I slid down the face of government-made cliffs on the seat of my commissary breeches.
The others remained to help Bruce rig up the shears and put the block and tackle into place. Fortunately, section gangs had been working on the railroad recently, putting in new ties, and there were any number of discarded timbers along the embankment. These the lads appropriated, for they knew that the railroad men no longer wanted them and that sooner or later a bonfire would be made of them.
All of this requires the kindly cooperation of the management, and involves a much more elaborate organization and system than the old-fashioned herding of men in large gangs.
The great entrance-gates of the works were fairly besieged, and the roadway outside blocked by the great army of applicants, who were admitted into the presence of the professor in gangs of twenty at a time.
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